Career Advice is mostly wrong

Shocking as it may seem, most of the career advice provided is completely wrong!

Look at who is providing the career advice to young people.

1) Teachers

2) Parents

3) Friends

4) The young person themselves.

None of the above should be listened to when it comes to career advice.

What do teachers know about the incredibly diverse job market of the 21st century? I don’t write this to insult them and of course there will be exceptions but in the main teachers are not the best people to give career advice.

And as a parent I can of course see the downfall in trying to give career advice to a teenager. Even if you do know what you are talking about (and that’s a big IF), it’s not likely to be taken on board. Best if you parents keep out of the way.

I figure the most influential advisers a teenager has is her friends. They will listen to friends before and above everyone else. Unfortunately fourteen your olds know squat about what career is right for their friend. Makeup maybe. Career – no.

And finally we have the teenager giving themselves advice. Oh dear me.

I wouldn’t have listen to much of what I had to say to myself at 14. A head too full of nonsense which I am still recovering from.

So there you have it; most of the career advice is wrong. It’s delivered by people who know little of nothing about it. They all mean well but they can’t deliver.

I would just like to say that about a couple of years back I was in my local job centre to see a disabled employment advisor and I showed him my CV and of course all my job applications. I had mentioned quite discreetly on my CV that I had a mild health condition to which the advisor told me promptly to remove, saying I may as well write down “dont employ me” as knowone would once they read this (I thought I was just being honest). Months later I found a job and registered with a place called Remploy, they were supposed to help people with a disadvantage when it came to working. I didnt bother declaring my health condition to my new employer as told previously by job centre staff and Remploy knew of my health condition therefore I thought they had this all sorted with my employer (they had a representative in the workplace about once a week and I was constantly being told my employer had no problems with me by them) Due to a twist of fate my health condition came to my employers attention and they werent to happy, saying I had falsified my contract and when I mentioned the Remploy organization the boss had no idea I was registered with them and said that as for them saying my work was satisfactory – my name had never come up in conversation! I basically lost my job through all this and found the Remploy staff werent doing what they should have been, I was lied to by them and given should I say misleading information via a disabled employment advisor at the job centre the places where people should be able to be given good advice. Fortunatly since this happened I found my own jobs and I am presently employed in a job I enjoy, but just out of curiosity do you know the dos and donts of declaring a health condition when going for a job? just to put my mind at rest. Thanks